Iltutmish

Entrance portal of the tomb of Iltutmish, Qutb complex , Mehrauli ( Delhi )

Grave building, mihrab and cenotaph of Iltutmishs, Qutb complex, Mehrauli

Shams ad-Din Iltutmish also Altamsh ( Hindi अलतामश , Urdu شمس الدین التتمش; † 1236 ) was the third and most important sultan of the Sultanate of Delhi , ruled by the so-called slave dynasty in the 13th century ; he ruled from 1211 to 1236.

origin

Parts of Iltutmish's biography have legendary traits: he is said to have been of noble origin, but was sold as a slave ( ghulam ) by his jealous brother . After changing masters several times, he finally came to Delhi . His ascent began as a body slave and later son-in-law of Qutb-ud-Din Aibak , one of the two important slave generals of the Ghurids in India (the other was Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji , conqueror of Bengal , murdered in 1206). As such, Iltutmish became governor ( mukta ) of the upper Gangestal.

Seizure of power

When Qutb-ud-Din Aibak (reigned 1192 / 3–1210), who had meanwhile risen to become the actual ruler in northern India, had an accident while playing polo , Aram Shah was initially his successor. But Aram Shah, whose possible relationship to Aibak is not known, was not recognized: Kabacha, governor of the Punjab and son-in-law of Aibak made himself independent, as did Bhaktyar's successor in Bengal , and given the weakness of Aram Shah, the military asked Iltutmish to carry out a coup . The victorious and ascended the throne in 1211. In addition, he settled in 1229 by an envoy of the Abbasid - Caliph of Baghdad solemnly as Sultan confirm; a move that formally consolidated his authority in the last years of his life.

government

The still young rule of Islam in India at that time relied exclusively on the military, which was stationed in the most important fortresses such as Delhi, Gwalior , Ajmer , Kanauj and elsewhere. Due to the (still) negligible number of Muslims, the administration remained mostly in the hands of the long-established Indian authorities and the collection of "taxes" corresponded to a state of war. The customs were cruel, the state was accordingly unstable and ambitious military officials tried again and again to enrich themselves through a coup.

Iltutmish's reign was therefore filled with almost uninterrupted battles with renegade governors and with Hindu princes. In 1214, Yildiz, a former governor of the Ghurids in Persia (more precisely in Ghazna ) occupied the city of Lahore after the Khorezm Shahs had expelled him from his province. He was beaten and executed by Iltutmish. Then the Sultan subjugated the Punjab governor Kabacha (1217) and Iwaz Khan of Bengal (1225), took the Rajput fortress of Ranthambhor , defeated Kabacha again until he drowned in the Indus (1228), then annexed Sind and conquered the Hindu fortress Gwalior (1231) . When Iltutmish's son, who was appointed governor in Bengal, died (1229), Bengal had to be subjugated again (approx. 1231). In 1234, Iltutmish's army overran the Hindu state of Malwa (belonging to the Paramara ) to Ujjain . Theoretically, he controlled the entire north of India from the Indus to the Ganges Delta at that time . In 1236 the Sultan died on a campaign against rebellious Khokhars who lived in the foothills of Kashmir .

Jalal ad-Din and the Mongols

In 1221 the last Khorezm Shah, Jalal ad-Din, was defeated by the Mongols under Genghis Khan on the Indus and fled to India. Concerned about his rule, Sultan Iltutmish did send him presents, refused his request for help and Jalal ad-Din's request to be allowed to stay in northern India, but with the remark that the climate in Delhi was far too unhealthy. Sultan Jalal ad-Din stayed in Punjab and Sindh , where he received influx from other refugees and built up a small empire until he withdrew from India in 1224 because Persia was more important to him. However, Mongolian troop leaders established themselves in the Afghan mountains and on the Murghab from 1229 and remained a danger.

legacy

Iltutmish united northern India from the Indus to the Bay of Bengal under the suzerainty of Delhi. He is also said to have introduced the Arab coin system (tanka silver coins) in India. His daughter Raziah (1236–1240) and his sons Firoz (1236), Bahram (1240–42), Masud (1242–46), Mahmud (1246–66) ruled until 1266, when a slave and son-in-law Iltutmish took over power : Balban (1266-87).

buildings

Iltutmish commissioned many structures in Delhi and other places. He had the Qutb Minar in Delhi completed (second to fourth floors) and an extension to the neighboring Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque and the Adhai-din-ka-Jhonpra Mosque in Ajmer ( Rajasthan ). In Delhi he had the iron pillar erected in the courtyard of the Qutb complex around 1229 . The Great Mosque in Badaun dates back to his time as governor of this city. There are several founding inscriptions of the ruler that have been preserved without the associated buildings, as well as reports about other foundations.

His own tomb in the Qutb complex (Delhi) is considered the first significant mausoleum of Indo-Islamic architecture . Although the (cantilever) dome of the square (9.10 m side length) - developing upwards to an octagon, then to a sixteenth corner - tomb building collapsed centuries ago (the 2.20 m thick outer walls of the mausoleum may have been for a dome with such a huge span but not stable enough), the interior of the entire building is convincing with its extraordinarily rich and fine stone carvings in horror vacui manner and the combination of different stone materials: red sandstone for the cladding of the building; white marble for the mihrab and the cenotaph of the ruler, whose actual burial site is below the ground.

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  Cenotaph and wall decor (photo c. 1860)

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  Cenotaph and wall decor

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  cenotaph

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  Mihrab of the mausoleum

episode

The historian Barani (1258-1357) reports that one day Iltutmish was visited by Islamic teachers of the faith who accused him of not forcing the Hindus to convert to Islam. He replied that by doing this they would rise and defeat him.

literature

• Peter Jackson: The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. , Cambridge University Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-54329-3 .
• André Wink: Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. II - The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th-13th centuries. Brill, Leiden 2002, ISBN 978-0-391-04173-8 .

Web links

Commons : Iltutmish  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Iltutmish - Infos ( Encyclopaedia Britannica , Engl.)
• Iltutmish - Infos (Engl.)
• Iltutmish and his kingdom (engl.)
• Iltutmish Mausoleum (Archnet Engl.)
• Radiyya, the story of his successor (Engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Finbarr Barry Flood: Persianate Trends in Sultanate Architecture: The Great Mosque of Bada'un. In: Bernard O'Kane (Ed.): The Iconography of Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Robert Hillenbrand. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2005, ISBN 0-7486-2090-7 , pp. 159-195, here pp. 165 f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Aram Shah	Sultan of Delhi ( slave dynasty ) 1211–1236	Rukn ud din Firuz